this is the outcome of last week’s story.  sorry it’s taken this long to post again.  it’s been a busy since then, but i’m back again now.  so here it is.

it can be an awkward moment when you realize that you have to prepare something in very little time and attempt to be coherent and effectively communicate God’s heart to people.  i am constantly thinking about topics to speak about, but it’s different when it’s the last minute.  we are in the middle of a series that i needed carry some relevance over to the following weeks so we would maintain continuity.  this makes everything quite interesting when you weren’t involved in the planning process that decided the flow of messages for the semester.

all of that said, i also believe that God allows things like this to happen and he works his plan out to convey his heart and establish his will.  we often get upset when things don’t go the way we planned and we refuse to believe that God has a bigger picture plan for all circumstances.  i had to speak because the car my co-worker and some students from our ministry were in hit a raccoon and took out the radiator.  perhaps God allowed this to happened in order to prevent them from getting in some other accidents that could have had worse consequences.  also, perhaps God used that circumstance to speak a message to me that he wanted communicated to our community of Jesus followers. i don’t know that any of this is the reason why i ended up speaking, but i also don’t know that it isn’t the reason.

anyway, the night actually went really well.  God brought together a message in my heart that he wanted to share.  i spoke about experiences.  the fact that we have experiences of God working on our lives on a daily basis.  our lives are centered around experiences.  we learn from experiences.  we live experiences.  there is more though, God calls us to mission.  our mission is to build relationships with people around us and through those relationships allow God to speak to people through us and call them into relationship with him.  our role is to effectively facilitate God experiences for all people around us.  it doesn’t end here though.  we forget that our purpose in life is God.  everything we do, everything we are must revolve around God.  this paradigm shift from me to God is essential to our Jesus follower faith.  i cannot choose to make God a part of my life.  i have to choose to make my life part of God.  i work for God.  i play (you know, the things you do for relaxation  or whatever) for God.  i live for God.

this is the message that God has been burning into my heart.  there is no separation of my life and God.  as a Jesus follower, my life only exists to serve the will of God and i must do whatever he wishes of me.  this is not an easy task, but one that sells our life to who we believe and somehow our life actually comes into existence because of it.  dietrich bonhoeffer said, “when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”  i would add to that “when Christ calls a man, he bids him came and die to find real life.”

the night went well.  young people responded to God call to make him first in their lives and to reignite the God’s mission for their lives.  it’s awesome to see God move in people’s hearts.  i hope God moves mine closer to his.

peace and love!
christopher